Death of the American Dream

On the surface, The Great Gatsby is a story
of the torn love between and man and a women. The theme of the
novel, however; shows a much larger, less romantic scope.
Though all of its action takes place over a few months during
the summer of 1922 and is set in a restricted geographical
area of Long Island, New York, The Great Gatsby is a highly
symbolic dispute on America in the 1920's, in particular the
disintegration of the American dream is an era of lacking
prosperity and material possession.
F. Scott Fitzgerald portrays the 1920's as an era of decayed
social and moral values, evidence in its embracing cynicism,
greed and empty persuit for pleasure. The reckless feeling
that led to decadent parties and wild Jazz music, like the
ones shown in The Great Gatsby with the miraculous parties
Gatsby throws every Saturday night, resulted mainly in the
destruction of the American dream, as the unrestrained want
for money and pleasure and to go beyond the noble goals. When
World War I ended in 1918, the generation of young Americans
who had fought in the war became more disillusioned, as the
brutal carnage that they had just faced, made the Victorian
social mortality of the early 20th century American seemed
like boring, stuffy and empty hypocrisy. The dizzying rise of
the stock market, which was the consequence of the war, led to
a sudden, sustained increase in the national wealth and a new
found materialism, as people began to spend and consume at
dangerous levels. A person from any social group or background
could, eventually, make a fortune, but the American
aristocracy (families with old wealth) disliked the newly rich
industrialists and spectators. Additionally, the passage of
the 18th Amendment in 1919, which banned the sale of alcohol,
created a thriving underworld formatted to satisfy the massive
demand for bootleg liquor among both the rich and the poor.

Fitzgerald positions the characters of The Great Gatsby as
symbols of the 1920's social trends. Nick and Gatsby, who had
both fought in WWI, exhibit the new found cosmopolitanism and
cynicism that resulted from the war. The various social
climbers and ambitious spectators who attend Gatsby's parties
show the greedy scramble for wealth. The crash between "Old
Money" and "New Money" manifests itself in the novel's
symbolic geography. East Egg represents the established
aristocracy; West Egg represents the self-made rich. Meyer
Wolfshiem and Gatsby's fortune symbolize the rise of organized
crime and bootlegging.

As Nick explains in Chapter IX, the American dream was
originally about discovery, individualism and the quest for
happiness. In the 1920's shown in the novel, however; easy
money and relaxed social values have corrupted this dream,
especially on the East Coast. The main plot of this novel
strongly reflects this judgment, as Gatsby's dream of loving
Daisy is ruined by the difference in their respective social
statuses, Gatsby turning to crime to make enough money to
impress her, and the unrestricted materialism that
characterizes her lifestyle. Even though places and objects in
The Great Gatsby have meaning is only because the characters
instill them with meaning. The eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg
show this idea. In Nick's mind, the ability to create
meaningful symbols amounts to a central component of the
American dream, as early Americans invest their new nation
with their own comforts and values.

Nick compares the green bulk of America rising from the ocean
to the green light at the end of Daisy's dock. Just as
Americans have given America meaning through their dreams for
their own lives, Gatsby instills Daisy with a kind of
idealized perfection that she either deserves or has. Gatsby's
dream is ruined by the unworthiness of its object, just as the
American dream in the 1920's is ruined by the unworthiness of
it's object, money and pleasure. Like 1920's Americans in
general, fruitlessly seeking a past existing era in which
their dreams had value, Gatsby longs to recreate a vanished
past, his time in Louisville with Daisy, but isn't able to do
so. When his dream crumbles, all that is left for Gatsby to
do, is to die; all Nick can do is move back to Minnesota,
where the American dream and values have not yet decayed.